


varsity athletes with stalkers

by charizona



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 12:25:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2507759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charizona/pseuds/charizona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rachel Duncan is the future editor of the yearbook and Sarah Manning is threatening her high school career.</p>
            </blockquote>





	varsity athletes with stalkers

Rachel walks, no _strides_ , down the school hallway, pretending not to notice the way the DSLR camera thumps on her chest. She makes her way toward the gym doors, flashing her Yearbook Identification Tag at the money table, before brushing past and beginning to find a seat.

She’d just gotten done getting practically scolded by her teacher because _apparently_ there had been too many pictures of a certain player on the Girls Basketball team and not an equal amount of everyone. Rachel hadn’t even paid any attention when she’d been taking them at the last game, least of all when it came to _Sarah Manning_.

Sarah Manning, star shooting guard for their school who could sink three pointers from the left and right corners every time someone gave her the ball, resident screw up who barely scraped by in class (and Rachel had her in first, third, lunch, _and_ seventh, so she would know), and most likely the cockiest asshole Rachel knows.

Not that she’d ever met her.

Or anyone on the team, for that matter. She’d only photographed them at the last game and had gotten a bit carried away watching Sarah drive down the middle, especially when Sarah had smiled at her from the sidelines, and Rachel had dismissed it as soon as it came.

She’s determined for this one to be different. The team isn’t even on the floor yet, but Rachel readies her camera nonetheless, watching the clock like a hawk. Soon the stands begin filling and she herself is filled with that familiar feeling of claustrophobia as cheering parents and students crowd around her. She goes to stand near the cheerleaders, looking through the viewfinder and taking a few test shots of the floor.

The crowd roars and Rachel points her device toward where the team comes out, where the cheerleaders have arranged a makeshift tunnel for them.

She gets a good number of shots of the starting five: Elizabeth Childs, senior and point guard, Sarah Manning (Rachel takes six photos of Sarah and ignores the fact that she only took five of Elizabeth), junior and shooting guard, Cosima Niehaus, junior and power forward, Katja Obinger (Rachel takes a few more of the transfer student), senior and forward, and finally, Angela Deangelis, senior and center.

Rachel sits down, taking pictures as she goes, as the team begins to warm up.

Sarah Manning plays splendidly, Rachel thinks, but she wouldn’t say it outloud, if you asked. And if you looked at her photos of the game, there would be an equal amount of the varsity team, and maybe a few more than necessary of Elizabeth Childs, because after all, she is their star.

Sarah Manning plays splendidly, but the team however, does not, and they lose their first game of the season. Rachel is only mildly disappointed. She’s more concerned with her future position as editor of the yearbook that she’ll get if she does this job correctly, which is what she’s thinking about as she’s scrolling through the photos of the game.

She’s still there fifteen, twenty, thirty minutes after it’s ended, deciding which ones she should keep and which ones should go when she realizes that there’s someone standing in front of her.

“May I help you,” she says without looking up. Her thumb stills and the camera stops on a particularly good picture of Sarah Manning.

“Yeah, actually,” a voice says, and Rachel does finally look up, right into the flushed face of the _real_ star of the team. Sarah smiles. Almost. “I saw you taking pictures and I was wondering if you had any good ones. And if I could have any of ‘em.”

“They’re for the yearbook,” Rachel says distantly, looking back down at her camera. “If you want any, buy one.”

Sarah laughs, she _laughs_ , and Rachel is getting mildly annoyed. “Do you even go to school here?” Sarah asks.

Rachel turns off the camera, takes off the lense, pushes it back into the bag, and stands up, getting into Sarah’s personal space. “I do, actually, and you’re speaking to the future editor of the yearbook, so if you ever want a yearbook again, you might want to take a step back.”

Sarah does, raising her hands, smiling, no _smirking_ , and Rachel’s own lips form a line. Sarah turns around and begins to walk away, throwing a towel over her shoulder and it’s all Rachel can do to tear her eyes away, staring intensely at her own hands.

“See you later, Blondie,” Sarah calls over her shoulder, when she’s halfway across the gym.

Rachel glances furtively around to see if there’s anyone else. There isn’t. “Doubt it,” she calls back.

She turns on the camera and deletes the photo of Sarah and wonders why she took it in the first place.

 

\--

 

Rachel takes aerobics because she had a free period last year and preferred not to fill it with something trivial like _art_ or _drama_. She decided that a class that would keep her in shape would be the perfect way to end her day.

She hadn't factored in the freshman clogging the locker room like their hair in the swimmers’ shower drains. _Or_ Sarah Manning and her hooligan brother, who own the gym with an authority that Rachel wishes she could claim.

Instead, she’s left doing yoga on the opposite side of the gym as Sarah Manning, her brother, and _Paul Dierden_ , play basketball.

Rachel doesn’t watch, but she could place that laughter any day and it makes downward dog dissatisfying, knowing that Sarah Manning is having fun, oblivious to Rachel’s failing career spiral toward yearbook editor.

She hadn’t even noticed Sarah Manning before the winter season began, but that was before the aerobics class had forgone using the wrestling room and now had to use the gym because of “budget reasons”. Rachel knew it was because her teacher was fucking the wrestling coach and he’d convinced her that her students were ruining his precious mats.

So she was stuck. Stuck, catching herself staring at Sarah Manning’s impeccable form, at Sarah Manning in a tank top, _Sarah Manning’s arms_.

“Rachel,” Marian says, interrupting her glowering, and Rachel turns her steely gaze to her classmate. Marian Bowles leans into her stretch and Rachel finds herself watching the sinew of her lean arms. She shakes her head.

“Yes,” she says, cleanly and evenly.

Marian sits up, rolling her shoulders. “You shouldn’t stare,” she points out, and a tiny sliver of Rachel is set into a panic before, “I mean, it’s obvious that you hate her, but the rest of the school? It wouldn’t be wise to make her an enemy, Duncan.”

“No,” Rachel agrees, “it wouldn’t.”

 

\--

 

Three weeks later, Rachel has attended exactly three more games, one each Friday night. She’s become quite the photographer.

It’s a Friday when Sarah Manning corners her in the locker room when they’re changing at the end of class, in a secluded area. “Listen, Rachel,” Sarah says, and her tongue rolls over Rachel’s name carefully, like she took time in remembering it. Rachel can’t stop looking at her tongue and hates herself for it. Sarah smells like sweat and the faint smell of cognac. “I’m not going to buy a yearbook. It’ll be easier for us both if you just give me a flashdrive with some pictures on it or something.”

Rachel glances at Sarah’s hand, propped up on the wall next to them, before looking directly in Sarah’s eyes. “ _No_ ,” she says, “if you want any pictures, you’ll have to purchase a yearbook. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to get to class.”

She moves to step around Sarah and is pulled roughly back, Sarah’s hand clenched around her upper arm, pulling her back into place.

Rachel looks at Sarah’s hand and can feel her chest tighten.

“ _Don’t_ ,” Rachel manages, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach and the heat between her legs, ignoring the way Sarah smells, ignoring the way Sarah’s biting her lip, ignoring the way -- “touch me,” she finishes.

Sarah releases her arm immediately, stepping back, before that same hand drifts to the back of her neck. “Shit, I’m,” she stops, looking at the floor, “I’m sorry.”

Rachel pulls at her shirt, resting against the wall.

Finally, Sarah looks up. “Will you be at the game tonight?”

“And risk a failing grade? Never.” Rachel’s voice is smaller than she wants it to be as she remembers the way Sarah’s hand felt on her skin. She looks at the hand now, limp at Sarah’s side.

Sarah laughs and somehow it’s hollow, not at all like what Rachel’s accustomed to hearing. “You’ll have to kill me before I give up one getting those pictures.”

“I wouldn’t be above it.”

“Somehow,” Sarah says slowly, “somehow I knew you’d say that.”

 

\--

 

Rachel left something in her gym locker, so she’s making her way down to the locker room after the basketball game. The game had been against their school’s rival, so the crowd was energetic, and most of all, it was senior’s night. Beth Childs was cherished and got the ball for most of the night and Rachel took a lot of pictures.

Rachel thinks that it was her scarf that she left in her locker.

She waits a solid ten minutes after the game before heading downstairs, taking the long way to the locker room. She walks through the empty hallways and looks through the viewfinder of the camera and thinks about how tonight was the last game that she had to attend. There’s a blissful freeness that accompanies this thought.

The basketball team has their own locker room that Rachel passes on her way, hearing the jokes and laughter emanating from inside of it.

Rachel turns on her camera as she rounds the corner to the entrance of the locker room and begins looking through some of the photos, weeding out the bad ones. She makes her way to her own locker, quickly unlocking the combination lock with ease before she’s opening it. She sets the camera down, still on, to rifle through the contents.

And when she turns around, scarf in hand, she finds the camera gone.

She stands there, staring at the spot that it had been, ignoring the slight pounding in her chest as she realizes that this is very, very bad.

“These are some great pics,” a voice says and Rachel stiffens, her spine tightening before she rolls her eyes so hard they hurt.

“ _Sarah_ ,” she growls, “you are entering _extremely_ dangerous territory.”

Sarah doesn’t respond and Rachel takes a step forward, letting the door to her gym locker fall shut with a loud sound.

The lights flicker off and Rachel almost expects to hear the cranky yell of the gym teacher from her office, telling the freshman to leave the light switches alone, but she’s left waiting. It’s just her and Sarah in the dark locker room.

Rachel feels like the butt of a joke and a little ready to commit homicide.

She begins walking through the maze of lockers, talking light steps and listening for any signs of Sarah and where she may be.

“Where _are_ you?”

“Right here,” Sarah says, the voice behind her, and Rachel whirls, her hand in the air, before her palm connects with Sarah’s face with a satisfying crack.

Sarah, to her credit, barely flinches. She smirks and Rachel looks her up and down, chest pounding, no _bursting_ , looking for any sign of the camera. “Ouch,” Sarah says, and Rachel is _mad_.

She wants to punch her. She wants to slap her again, maybe. Instead, she vaults forward, crashing toward Sarah recklessly, throwing her arms around Sarah’s sweaty shoulders and their lips collide, all teeth and mess of lips. Rachel dives into Sarah, parting her mouth and crushing her own lips against hers until Sarah’s stumbling back, hands falling against Rachel’s waist.

Sarah’s back hits a wall and the breath falls out of her lungs.

Sarah kisses back and her hips press into Rachel’s hips, just as Rachel curls a leg around Sarah’s waist, urging for closeness.

Rachel has to pull back for air, parting from Sarah with a _smack_ of lips and a chorus of heavy breathing.

Sarah’s hands gravitate toward Rachel’s ass, partially holding her up, and then this time it’s her kissing Rachel, softer and less messy as she moves against Rachel’s lips like she dribbles down the court, with a plan.

Her tongue parts lips and parades around teeth, finding Rachel’s own and Rachel groans, feeling Sarah’s hands tighten.

Suddenly, Sarah’s flipping her around and Rachel’s pressed between the wall and Sarah, her leg hiked up even further than before as Sarah’s hand curls around the back of her knee. Sarah’s mouth moves to her neck and already, she can feel the bruises blooming at Sarah’s insistence.

“Sarah,” Rachel murmurs and Sarah hums. " _Sarah_ ,” she says again, louder this time.

Sarah looks up, lips wet and glistening, and Rachel is breathing her air. Sarah’s breath smells and tastes like mint, like smoke, and Rachel’s a bit distracted from where she was going with this.

She remembers after a moment. “Where,” she starts, slowly because Sarah’s looking at her in a way that makes the thigh between her legs wholly noticeable, “is my camera?”

Sarah stares at her, breaking out into a wolfish grin, though Rachel doesn’t think that anything is funny. That camera is expensive and -- and --

Sarah’s head falls into the crook of Rachel’s neck and she lets go of Rachel’s leg. Oh, so they’re done with that, Rachel thinks, a little reminiscent.

“It’s by the bathroom,” Sarah says, pressing a kiss to Rachel’s neck, to her jaw, to the corner of her mouth, and finally, to her lips. “I’ll see you around at school, Rachel.”

Rachel nods, leaning against the wall as Sarah retracts herself.

Sarah leaves and Rachel goes to find the camera, spotting it propped behind a toilet. She checks for damages. And everything looks fine, ready to turn in.

She turns it on to find a picture of camera and the screen reads: no memory.

Calmly, she checks the SD slot and finds it empty.

She makes a mental note to kill Sarah Manning.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write Rachel that wanted Sarah but would not admit to anyone that she wanted Sarah and this was the result, because I, too, was recently tasked with the exciting job of taking pictures for yearbook. Unlike Rachel, I am also on the basketball team (and I am not making out with the star of it).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
